


What Happens in Vegas...

by kenzz_95



Series: Trektober 2020 [27]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Accidental Marriage, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kenzz_95/pseuds/kenzz_95
Summary: Leonard and Jim are taking a road trip from San Francisco to Atlanta so Leonard can see his daughter, and Jim suggests they stop in Vegas for the night. They both end up having WAY too much to drink and wake up the next morning and realize they've broken several boundaries in their friendship. But while accidentally drunkenly marrying your best friend may just be funny and weird under most circumstances, doing it when you're actually in love with the man was quite another problem entirely.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Series: Trektober 2020 [27]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1948633
Comments: 10
Kudos: 56
Collections: Trektober 2020





	What Happens in Vegas...

**Author's Note:**

> Trektober Day 28: Road Trip
> 
> This is actually a part one, and part two (meeting the family) is tomorrow's fic. Hope you enjoy!

“You gotta turn left up here,” Leonard instructed his friend, looking down at the GPS on his phone.

“I don’t have to turn anywhere, Bones, this road is straight,” Jim argued.

“What, you plannin’ on taking PCH all the way down to San Diego? Did they relocate Atlanta when I wasn’t looking?”

“I don’t have to get off until like Santa Monica or something. We’re fine, we’ve got time.”

“That’s too close to LA, we’re gonna hit traffic. The GPS says we should get off here.”

“Traffic? Bones, it’s 1 pm on a Tuesday.”

“Jim, it’s  _ Los Angeles _ ,” Leonard pointed out. He hadn’t spent a lot of time down there, but it seemed like the presence of traffic wasn’t that dependent on the day or time.

“It’ll be fine! Besides, this way we get more of the view!” Jim countered, and since he was driving there wasn’t a whole lot Leonard could do about it.

Like most of the weird things that Leonard got involved in, this one was Jim’s idea. Well, the trip itself had been his idea. His and Jocelyn’s. For the first few years, their divorce had been incredibly contentious, but, well, Joanna was their priority and eventually they figured out that while they disagreed on what the best thing for her was, it pretty clearly wasn’t having her parents scream at each other every time they were in the same room. So they had both gotten the hell over themselves, for their daughter’s sake, and came to realize that while they were terrible at being a married couple, they weren’t so bad as friends or co-parents. Now he got to video call with his daughter every weekend for as long as they wanted, he could text her whenever, and the past Christmas he’d actually gone to Atlanta and stayed with his grandparents but they’d all spent Christmas together, just him and Joanna and Jocelyn and her new husband. And there hadn’t even been any yelling or passive aggressiveness or anything. And their little girl, now 9, had been so over the moon to have both her parents with her on Christmas that it had been worth all the work they’d put in to get to that point. So this summer they were going to try something different. Leonard was going to go to Atlanta, get himself a hotel, and Joanna was going to stay with him for 10 days. If it all went well, Joanna would be able to choose which parent she wanted to spend which school holidays with. Jim was coming as well, because he and Leonard were roommates and they wanted to make sure that Joanna was comfortable with him. That, and Jim really wanted to go to a warm water beach, despite Leonard’s repeated warnings that Atlanta wasn’t really that close to the ocean. It was fine, though, as apparently Jim was going to take a few days in Savannah by himself while Leonard was with his daughter, and it would be nice to have the company when he was around.

Leonard’s plan, however, had involved taking a train from San Francisco to Atlanta because he absolutely refused to fly. Where Jim came in, though, was the road trip bit. His best friend and roommate thought it would be more fun to drive across the country, see some sights between the two cities, make the journey part of the trip, not just the destination. The drive could be made in three even days of 12 hours each, but Jim had insisted on allowing for 5 days of travel time so they could do what they were doing now, which was driving down the Pacific Coast Highway instead of I5, which was far faster. Leonard was allowing it because he loved spending time with Jim and could never bring himself to deny the kid any halfway reasonable thing. So they drove the car they shared alongside the ocean, they stopped for lunch at some little side of the road seafood place Jim knew about for some reason, and Leonard couldn’t even find it in himself to complain too much.

“Let’s go to Vegas!” Jim suggested out of the blue as they drove. Like Leonard had predicted, they’d hit traffic as they’d gotten closer to LA, and had ended up sitting in barely moving lines of cars for a couple hours before it finally cleared out. They were finally on the actual highway, heading to Atlanta, but apparently Jim was getting distracted again.

“Jim, that’s not even on the way.”   


“It’s not too far out of the way. Plus we’ve gotta spend the night  _ somewhere _ , and what’s better than Vegas?”

“I can think of about a hundred better places to spend the night than  _ Vegas _ , including the bottom of a ditch on the side of the road,” Leonard pointed out. He had been to Vegas once in his life, and he hadn’t particularly enjoyed the experience. Sure, he wouldn’t have minded playing a few rounds of poker with some good bourbon in his hand, but the rest of what Vegas had to offer wasn’t exactly his scene. 

“Come on, Bones, it’ll be fun! I promise not to even attempt to drag you to a club, strip or otherwise. You can clean up in poker and have a few drinks and call it a night. It’d be a nice break before you have to go into dad mode for a while.”

Jim...admittedly made a few points. Maybe Jim would spend all night by his side, comfortable, relaxed, and friendly. Or maybe Jim would go off and do whatever the fuck he sometimes did, and Leonard could drown the sorrows of his unrequited love in various casino drinks without any real responsibility the next day. Neither sounded like terrible options, although he did have a clear preference. Nothing made him feel more like the center of the universe than having Jim’s undivided attention.

“You better not count cards and get us kicked out,” Leonard warned, which was obviously an agreement and his friend knew that. Jim grinned, a wide beautiful smile and little crinkles around his eyes.

“I won’t, I promise.”   


“You won’t count cards or you won’t get caught?”

“I won’t even play. Playing by the rules is no fun.”

Typical Jim. Leonard rolled his eyes,

“No clubs.”

“No clubs,” Jim agreed, “Oh, Bones, this is gonna be so much fun!”

Their night in Vegas did not go as planned, which was probably true for, well, most people’s nights in Vegas. It started out simple enough. Leonard won a few hands of poker, had a few drinks, and reveled in the fact that Jim had apparently decided to glue himself to his friend’s hip that night. But then Leonard drank just a bit too much to play poker well, and Jim proclaimed it his mission to find the best place for drinks on the strip. Neither of them had fully realized just how many places there were to get drinks on the strip, and they hadn’t even come close to trying everywhere given the fact that they were still  _ alive _ in the morning, but they’d both drank far more than they usually did now that they were both into their 30s and hangovers hit them like a damn wrecking ball.

It had been over a decade since Leonard had drank until he blacked out, he really didn’t enjoy the experience, but as he lay in bed the next morning with the worst headache of his life, probably, and feeling like he would vomit if he even moved an inch, he realized the last thing he remembered from the night before was playing slots absolutely drunk off his ass and wrapped all over his own best friend. Everything got fuzzy after that. He couldn’t possibly guess how they’d ended up back at their hotel room, let alone what time it had been. Hopefully Jim remembered more, he hated having gaps in his memory. But if the way his friend woke up with a groan then immediately launched himself out of bed and ran for the bathroom, it was very likely he didn’t.

It took an hour for Leonard to stop feeling like if he opened his eyes or even just moved a muscle then he’d be joining Jim in the bathroom. Finally he had enough energy to drag himself out of bed and toss back a few painkillers with one of the electrolyte drinks the hotel wisely kept in the mini fridge. It had probably cost him $20 to even pick it up, but he couldn’t be bothered to care.

He padded into the bathroom, only to find his best friend curled up naked on the floor.

“Take these,” he pressed the pills into Jim’s hand and decided to share the drink. Jim did so dutifully as Leonard sank onto the floor as well, cool tiles feeling nice on bare skin, and the sudden, jarring realization that he wasn’t wearing any clothes either. It seemed a silly thing to just be realizing, but he’d barely had his eyes open since he pulled himself out of bed. He decided he didn’t care enough to find his clothes right then. Jim had seen him naked before, it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world.

They stayed like that, silently drinking an electrolyte drink while naked on the floor of the bathroom, for about another hour before Jim finally sat up and asked,

“So, uh, what do you remember about last night?”

“Not much past Caesars Palace,” Leonard admitted. At least, he was pretty sure that was which casino they’d been in right before he blacked out.

“So you don’t know if we fucked last night then?” Jim asked and it felt like he’d been punched in the gut, which really wasn’t good for the fact that he still felt like if he ate something wrong he was liable to throw up.

“What makes you think that?” he asked finally. He and Jim had never crossed that line, although they’d crossed most others. He certainly had thought about it more than a few times, though.

“Other than the fact that I feel like I’m gonna be walking funny all day and we woke up in bed together naked? Probably this,” Jim held up a shiny condom wrapper he must’ve picked up out of the trash next to the toilet.

Leonard didn’t know what to say. Part of him was mad that he finally got in bed with Jim and didn’t even remember it. But a bigger part was worried this was going to just be awkward as hell for a while.

“So you don’t remember then?” Jim asked when he still hadn’t said anything and was just staring at the condom wrapper in Jim’s hands.

“No, I don’t. At least we were safe, I guess.” He was trying to look on the bright side, if there was one. This situation didn’t make a lot of sense. The fact of the matter was that while Jim was absolutely a horny drunk with boundary issues, Leonard just got sleepy and a bit irritable when he was drunk off his ass like he would’ve been last night. And sure, his inhibitions may have been lower, but he still thought he would’ve had the presence of mind to realize that having sex with Jim would be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. He thought he’d ingrained that in his subconscious at this point.

“Uh yeah,” Jim agreed, “So, anyways, I think I’m gonna take a shower. Do you wanna get started packing us up? Maybe order some room service or something? There’s no reason to sit around here all day.”

Oh, so they were just going to move on and ignore it. That was fine with Leonard, actually. At least then he wouldn’t have to hear “look, Bones, you’re my best friend but it was just a drunken mistake…” No. He could handle ignoring it, actually. This may feel a bit weird at first, but Jim had been his best friend for 5 years at that point. They’d always be friends, this wasn’t going to fuck them up. Still, Leonard found himself wishing this hadn’t happened.

He found the paper when he was gathering their things together. Jim was still in the bathroom, but the shower wasn’t on anymore, and Leonard had been clearing off the bedside table when he found the certificate. The sight of those words on that paper was enough to make him freeze in place, just staring at it with wide eyes.

“Bones? Bones, what’re you looking at?”

Jim must’ve gotten out of the shower, then. Leonard barely registered the words, and he jumped a bit when Jim came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder,

“What’s that?”

Leonard said nothing, instead angling the paper for Jim to see better.

“Wait, fuck, is this a joke?”

“You think I’d fake a marriage certificate as a  _ joke _ ?” Leonard finally found his voice. Because there, on a somewhat crumpled piece of paper, was his own name alongside Jim’s. Their signatures were messy from the alcohol they’d been drinking, but it was real alright.

“Okay, shit, well I’m assuming you don’t remember this either?” Jim guessed and he nodded,

“Not even a little.”

“Wait, hold on, maybe one of us took pictures, we should check our phones,” Jim suggested. Leonard’s phone had some pictures from the night before, mostly horribly drunk selfies in various locations around the city, but nothing suggesting an impromptu marriage to his best friend and long time secret love. Jim’s, on the other hand, was much more helpful. Someone had obviously taken pictures for them, because there they were, Leonard and Jim, holding hands, drunk off their asses, and getting married by fucking Elvis.

“Well shit, this is the most embarrassing thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Leonard declared. The pictures were like a train wreck, though. He couldn’t look away, eyes locked on the shot of an obviously sloppy kiss between the pair at the altar.

“Fuck, okay, so what now?” Jim asked, looking as shocked and confused as Leonard felt. His blush was rare and in any other circumstance would’ve been unbelievably charming, just like how with any other people this whole thing would’ve been unbelievably hilarious. Instead, Leonard just felt like throwing up again.

“We’ll get it annulled. We were both drunk off our asses at the time, there’s plenty grounds for it.”   


“And it can’t be that hard, we’re hardly the first people to do something like this here. If you wanna shower, I can, ya know, look some stuff up,” Jim offered. Good, he was being given an out to process this a little on his own. He thanked his friend - he refused to refer to Jim as his husband, even in his head, as this would all be over in the blink of an eye - trudged into the bathroom, and sunk down onto the floor. Shit. They’d really made a mess of things this time.

For some reason, even after going through his whole mess of a divorce, Leonard had still thought that getting a marriage annulled would be as easy as accidentally ending up married to begin with. He had thought, or at least hoped, that they’d just have to press a few buttons and presto-chango they were single again. But nothing ever was as easy as he wanted it to be. There were a number of forms to be filled out and filed and they even had to call a goddamn lawyer to make sure everything was being done correctly. Luckily, annulling accidental Vegas marriages involving drunken tourists seemed to be the entire purpose of the law firm they ended up consulting, so at least that part was easy.

Leonard had also thought, for some reason, that they simply had to fill out the forms and he would go to bed no longer married. But no, everything had to be filed and processed and eventually approved by someone at the county court, which could take several weeks. He and Jim had stayed in Vegas that first day, but by the next morning there was no reason to linger. He still had to meet up with his daughter, and their paperwork wasn’t going to get processed faster for them actually being in the city. Jim had suggested that maybe they could call Jocelyn to ask for legal advice if they ran into problems, but Leonard had outright forbidden speaking of this to her. Not so much because he thought she’d use it against him in the new arrangement they were going to try with Joanna, but because he was certain she’d make fun of him for it for the rest of their lives. He could just picture them at Joanna’s wedding 20 years from now, he gives his daughter away to her future spouse, and then Jocelyn whispers something about the one time he got drunk and Vegas married his best friend when he was thirty-fucking-five. No. He wasn’t going to mention this, not to his ex-wife or  _ anyone _ . This stayed between them.

And for a while, it seemed like it wasn’t even between them. Leonard drove most of the second day, and neither of them mentioned the fact that, legally, they were still married. Or that they’d apparently had sex. There was an odd tension between them, both incredibly cognizant of the big thing they were very intentionally not talking about. And that was the worst part of all this. The ease of his friendship with Jim, how even when they disagreed they were always so naturally there for each other, was something Leonard had almost taken for granted. He wasn’t used to it feeling awkward, and while he had no doubt they’d get through this eventually, he still hated it more than he could express.

Neither of them mentioned their situation at all until their second day of driving from Vegas to Atlanta. They were only a few hours out from their stop for the night, and Jim was driving through fields of Oklahoma nothing-ness. This section of the county was so intensely empty that sometimes it made Leonard’s brain hurt. He realized he would gladly take the nothingness out the window, though, when Jim decided to strike up a conversation.

“So, I just can’t figure out why we did it.”

“Why we did what?” Leonard asked, even though he was certain he knew what Jim was talking about, and it wasn’t the fact that he forgot to ask for ranch with his chicken strips when they’d stopped for lunch.

“Ya know, have sex. Get married. All that,” Jim clarified, “I mean I know we were drunk but like…”   


“Oh, I thought we’d silently agreed just to not talk about that,” Leonard grumbled, glaring out the window. This conversation was a minefield and he wanted no part in it. There was that whole saying about what happens in Vegas, and even though their marriage annulment hadn’t gone through yet he still didn’t know why that couldn’t apply here.

“Yeah, well, I’m sick of the awkwardness and I’m getting impatient waiting for it to go away on its own. Maybe not talking about it is weirder?”

“What’s there to talk about? It happened, it’s over, neither of us remember it anyways.”

“That’s the problem! I hate having gaps in my memory, Bones, and I know you do too. You’re the one with most of the pictures on your phone, the last thing I remember is going to that casino that’s a pyramid?”

“Oh, I don’t remember that at all so you’ve got more than I do.”

“That was right after Caesar’s Palace, so not by much.”

Leonard figured he’d humor Jim and, well, maybe it would get better if they talked about it. Ripped the band-aid off, so to speak. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the pictures of that fateful night as Jim drove, staring intently out the windshield.

“Well, after the Luxor all I’ve got is what looks like some club full of fucking 20 year olds that you no doubt dragged me to.”

“Hmm, wish I remembered that, you in a trashy club is probably the weirdest thing that happened that night,” Jim laughed, but it sounded a bit forced, like he was trying very hard to be casual about this.

“Yes, well, I’m very glad I don’t remember that. Seems like you’ve got the rest though, so either the wedding was right after that trashy club or neither of us took pictures for a while.”

“Okay, so here’s the thing: we were obviously really drunk. Like, I don’t think I’ve been that drunk since grad school.”   


“When the fuck did you have time to get black out drunk in grad school?” Leonard asked, because while he was in med school he certainly hadn’t had the time to do anything like that.

“You make time for what matters, Bones,” Jim declared with a grin. Leonard rolled his eyes. “Anyways, I know I make shitty decisions when I’m drunk and kind of want to fuck anyone who’s willing, but you, my friend, just act like a goddamn 80 year old when you’re really drunk. All you want to do is complain loudly and go to bed.”

“Yeah, so?” he asked, not sure he liked where Jim was going with this. It seemed they were approaching “I fucked you because I make decisions like that when I’m drunk, what’s your excuse?” territory, and he wanted to stay far away from that.

“So, I can’t account for that. I can see how maybe our drunk brains decided to get married for tax benefits, or as a joke, or whatever the fuck, but I can’t account for how I ended up in bed with Leonard ‘Bones’ ‘Notoriously not a horny drunk’ McCoy. And that just throws everything for a loop because it makes me think that maybe at some point that night I told you I was in love with you and you said you loved me too.”

Leonard was glad he was not driving, because if he was he certainly would’ve slammed on the breaks or swerved off the road or something equally dramatic from the shock of how Jim ended that sentence. His friend was doing that thing he did where he was trying to appear casual, but he couldn’t help but notice Jim hadn’t once looked over at him since this conversation began. Not even for a second.

“Okay,” Leonard finally said, finding his voice again. At least, it was good enough, although somewhat weaker than he thought it would be. “And let’s just say that did happen, if you said that, I assume it would’ve just been some drunken confession.”

The thing was, he’d long since given up hope that Jim loved him back. They’d never actually  _ discussed  _ it, it was more of a feeling he had based on the fact that Jim had a difficult time keeping his mouth shut so surely if Jim loved him he would’ve known by now. So he was even more surprised when Jim admitted,

“Well, yeah, it was a drunken confession but that doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.”

“Did you just imply that you’re in love with me?”

“I did and I am,” Jim nodded, in that vaguely confident “I’m in this mess, I might as well make the best of it” Jim Kirk voice that Leonard knew so well. Like he knew there was no backing down, so he was just going to see it out until the end. “And, if you said it back that night, which I have to imagine you did, would you have meant it?”

“Yeah, I would’ve,” Leonard admitted, strangely still hesitant despite the fact that apparently Jim loved him back, holy shit apparently Jim loved him back. Holy fuck. Actually, it was less hesitation and more the fact that he only just began to realize the sheer magnitude of what Jim had said.

“You’re in love with me,” Jim realized, his voice filled with awe. It was actually sort of adorable. Leonard wanted to kiss him in that moment more than he ever had, but he didn’t want to cause a car crash.

“I am,” he confirmed.

“Shit. We’re really in love with each other,” Jim was laughing now, easier than he had since that fateful morning a couple days prior, “What a weird ass way to find out. So we, what, confessed our feelings while drunk off our asses, decided we might as well get married since we loved each other, went back to the hotel, fucked, then forgot the experience? That is, hands down, the weirdest night of my life.”

Leonard couldn’t help but laugh too. Jim’s laugh was infectious and this really was a lot funnier when his supposedly unrequited feelings weren’t in the middle making this all painful instead of just weird and stupid.

“Getting married was still a stupid decision,” Leonard remarked. It wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine marrying Jim, in fact he wasn’t surprised that his drunk self had gone for the idea, but despite the fact that they were incredibly close to the point of near codependency, despite his love for Jim and their apparent love for each other, despite the fact that them being with each other in some form for the rest of their lives was just a given at this point, he still wanted to date Jim. He wanted the time for them to figure out what they were like as a couple before he jumped straight into marriage. He wouldn’t be surprised, though, if someday he ended up marrying his soon to be ex husband, which was an odd thought.

“Oh, monumentally stupid,” Jim agreed, “we’re definitely still getting it annulled.”

“I do want a relationship, though, Jim. If that’s what you want.”

“I do. But, Bones, I’m terrible at relationships. I never know what to do in them.”   


“That’s not necessarily true. You’re terrible at that horrible getting to know someone phase. We’ve been best friends for the better part of the decade, we can skip that part, if you’re amenable.”

“So just jump right into boyfriends then? Or partners or whatever?”

“Well, we  _ did _ jump right into a goddamn marriage, I figured jumpin’ into a relationship ain’t a big deal at this point.”

Jim was smiling now, wide and happy, the corners of his eyes scrunching up in delight. He chanced a look over at Leonard, finally, and Jim’s eyes held all the answers either of them really needed, but Jim spoke anyways.

“Oh, I love when you talk southern to me. But yes, let’s just skip all the bullshit. Maybe I’m better at the real stuff.”   


“I’ll take whatever you can give me, Jim. We can figure it out together,” Leonard promised and Jim took one hand off the steering wheel and placed it, palm up, on Leonard’s thigh. He placed his own hand in Jim’s waiting palm, and they intertwined their fingers and Jim gave a soft squeeze.

“I love you, Bones.”   


“I love you too, Jim.”   


“One more thing: are you set in not telling anyone about this, because I think it’d be really funny to tell people I was dating my ex-husband.”

“You will tell Jocelyn or Jo over my dead body. Other than that, let’s take it case by case,” Leonard agreed, because it did sound a bit funny but mostly because he’d do anything for Jim to be happy, even agree to something stupid like this. Jim laughed brightly,

“Okay, sounds like a deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Things I don't condone: 
> 
> 1\. Drinking so much you can't remember it (drink responsibly!)
> 
> 2\. Getting drunk Vegas married (it counts in real life too)
> 
> 3\. Driving in LA


End file.
